1. Field
This disclosure relates to systems for recording and manipulating music and other audio content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Music creation and performance are activities enjoyed by people in every country of the world. Acoustic instruments have evolved over thousands of years, and their earliest electronic counterparts emerged nearly 100 years ago. The past decade has seen perhaps the most dramatic changes in how people produce music electronically, both individually and in groups. Digital samplers and synthesizers, computer-based recording and sequencing software and advances in new control interfaces have all pushed musical activities forward, with some interesting practices emerging.
One interesting practice is sequenced digital sample composition. Entire songs or backing tracks are now created from pre-recorded digital samples, stitched together in graphical software applications like Apple's Garage Band or Abelton's Live. This composition process usually involves a great degree of initial setup work, including finding samples, composing a piece, and scheduling the samples in the desired sequence. Some software programs allow for live performance and improvisation, using control surfaces with knobs, faders and buttons, or MIDI instruments to trigger the samples and to apply effects. A laptop computer is often brought to concerts to support live performance with these interfaces. A problem that has been often-discussed in electronic music circles is the “laptop musician problem,” which is that the computer-as-musical interface leaves much to be desired from the audience's point of view. A “performer” on stage interacting directly with a laptop computer, focused on the screen and using a mouse and keyboard, is typically not capable of giving an expressive bodily performance. Rather, the audience sees them looking at the screen and hardly moving their bodies, giving few clues as to the connection between their physical actions and the sounds being produced. It has often been cynically observed that these performers may be checking their email rather than actively creating the sounds coming from their computers.
A second practice that has enjoyed great popularity in recent years is the phenomenon of music-based video games. Guitar Hero and its sequel have been perhaps the most successful musical video games to date, but there are a number of other examples. The important characteristics of these games for the present discussion is that they use game-oriented controllers. Some games, like Guitar Hero, use special controllers made expressly for the purposes of the game. However, these games may not allow for music creation ad manipulation. Rather, they tend to enable musical “script-following,” in which gamers must press buttons in rhythm with pre-composed music or sing along with a pre-created song (i.e. karaoke). Games that allow for sequencing of samples do not permit on-the-fly recording of new samples by the musician, or continuous effects such as pitch-shifting and scrubbing.